After several weeks of waiting, I finally received the two brown envelopes through the letterbox which told me how I’d done with my enforced PIP (Personal Independence Payment) application and my ESA (Employment Support Allowance) reassessment and I was successful for both Benefits.

And, further to that, a very good family friend also received her brown envelope for PIP on Sarurday as well and she’s been successful as too. Virtual High Fives all over our social media pages let me tell you – we were delerious. We both got to sleep properly for the first time in quite a while that night and we can now both breathe freely once more because we know that our finances are guaranteed for at least the next few years at any rate.

Brilliant!

But, there is something we both want to know. Why is it that the maximum award we could receive was for ten years and then we will both need to go through the full assessment procedure once again.

Why?

Why just ten years?

I have MS. I am unable to walk, work or care for myself at all, I am a wheelchair user, I cannot dress myself, wash or bathe myself, prepare my own meals or feed myself without help. I have a catheter and I spend the majority of my time stuck in bed, and I am not going to get any better. I can only ever stay the same or, as is more likely, get worse. My friend has a visual impairment. She cannot see to look after herself or her child. She also needs help with so many things on a day-to-day basis. And, guess what, she will never recover either. Just like me she will stay the same or get worse for the rest of her life. There is no magic bullet that can cure either of us. And, for both of us, this is for always. This is for ever. Our impairments are degenerative and incurable. And, thanks to our impairments, neither of us are to ever be able to work and support ourselves, however much the Government would like us too.

But, here’s the thing. Both of us have been transferred to PIP from the old Benefit, Disability Living Allowance (DLA), where we both had life-time awards. Now we are in receipt of PIP, we don’t. The old Benefit understood that neither of us would improve – ever – so we were given awards that recognised this fact. Under DLA we both recieved awards that meant we would not be pestered, made to fill in intrusive and invasive forms the size of a small novel, questioned, examined, prodded, poked and assessed as if we were making it up and were lying about the difficulties we had in our everyday lives because of our impairments. Thanks to the transfer to PIP, we will now have to go through this all over again in ten years time. And, if we survive that, ten years further on from there too. And we’re not the only people to experience this. Other people with incurable, lifelong conditions are getting the same result. Ten years is the max.

Do the boffins at the DWP know something we don’t know? Is there a cure for MS, for blindness, for so many other impairments just round the corner?

All this ten year thing will do is cause worry, stress and countless sleepless nights for disabled people and their families and cost the Tax-payer millions. People with incurable impairments will need to be sent forms to complete that have to be printed and posted at a considerable cost to the State. People with incurable impairments will need to undergo unnecessary assessments, undertaken by paid assessors at home or at disability testing centres at a considerable cost to the State. People with incurable impairments will need to be sent letters and copies of their assessment reports telling them they have been re-awarded their Benefits that have to be printed and posted, at a considerable cost to the State. It does not make sense.

What’s wrong with having a Life-time Award for disabled people with incurable life-long, degenerative impairments? An award that recognises that there are some disabled people who will never get better and will always need help. If people are already getting the maximum award they can get and can’t improve, what’s the point in checking to make sure that they still can’t do the things they couldn’t do ten years earlier? If there is no more money available, if the award cannot go up, if things can’t change what’s the point? People who are not going to get better don’t need to be reminded of this fact every ten years.

Once someone has been assessed, if they have been awarded the maximum available and there is no chance of anything changing apart from things getting worse then just leave it alone. Stop the endless form-filling, stop the endless prodding, poking and assessing, stop the printing and posting, stop the endless stream of brown envelopes, stop the stress, stop the worry. It benefits no-one, it saves nothing and it’s all done at considerable cost to the Taxpayer.

OK Theresa and Jeremy and Tim and Nicola and Leanne and all the other pavement walking, door knocking, Manifesto-pledging Parliamentary candidates currently pounding our Nations’ streets, I have some questions for you. And, as a disabled person, I’m pretty sure there are many others from my community who have questions for you too. Why are you not speaking to us? Don’t we count? Don’t our votes matter to you? I hope not.

What I want to know, exactly, is what the political big-wigs and hard-hitters and movers and shakers in this country can offer to us? What promises can you give to all of us. What promises or pledges will you make to us? According to all the statistics I have been able to find, there are around 12-13 million disabled people in this country, what are you going to do to our lives any better for us? Are you totally disregarding the collective power and magnitude of disabled people’s votes and the votes of our families and friends? I hope not. Do you really think you can continue to either demonise us or watch others doing the demonising without us noticing? I hope not. Are you going to continue putting our needs to the back of the queue? I hope not. Are you going to go on ignoring us? I hope not.

Well, here are my questions at any rate.

We are told that Social care in this country is in crisis. That there is not enough money to pay home-carers and unpaid carers a decent wage or benefit that reflects what they do to support and enable us. What are you going to do about it? We are the net users of that care, what are you planning on doing to alleviate the situation and ensure that we get the care we want and need to allow us to live our lives to the full?

What are you going to do?

Many of us need to use aids and adaptations in our daily lives such as hoists and wheelchairs and hearing aids and aids for people with visual impairments. What are you going to do so that we can all get the best equipment we need to live without having to fight for every nut, bolt, screw, , plug, cable and electronic component?

What are you going to do?

Then there is the constant battle to find a home, a place to live which can cater for our access needs and accommodate us properly and in comfort. It’s often one of the greatest obstacles we face but one where we appear to get little or no help in getting what we need. What are you going to do to ensure that there are houses and flats and bungalows available which allow us to live in the community with our families, alongside our friends and neighbours without having to fight for funding for alterations and adaptations?

What are you going to do?

How are you proposing that your party will ensure that disabled children and young people can receive the education they need and deserve alongside their non-disabled compatriots? How are you going to try to ensure that they can all study together and not be segregated due to an impairment meaning the school or college is physically inaccessible for all?

What are you going to do?

Everyone falls sick at some point in their lifetime, what are you going to do to ensure that everyone can access the healthcare we all need and not find it being rationed according to how much we need it and how expensive it is? How are you going to give us access to the doctors and specialists and the nursing professionals we need in our hospitals? Are you going to ensure that these professionals receive salaries that reflect their skills and dedication? Are you going to make sure that they have working conditions such as hours and breaks that allow them to do their jobs to the best of their ability and not want to leave?

What are you going to do.

Then there the employment thing. We are told that everyone must work and get a job. What are you going to do to ensure that disabled people who can work get the support they need to do so safely and successfully and that those that can’t work due to their impairments are not demonised and punished for daring to be sick and disabled. Many of us would like to have the opportunity to do something, however small, what are you going to do to help us? How are you going to promote disability in the workplace so that those of us who can work and want to work get the support we need and the opportunity to do so?

What are you going to do?

Talk to us and tell us how you are going to help and support us. Why should we vote for you and your party as opposed to the other parties and their candidates? What are you going to do that will make a difference for us? Don’t write off 13 million potential voters. Please talk to us and tell us what you’re going to do to help us. If you want my vote give me a reason to put my cross next to your name on the ballot paper. What difference are you going to make to my life? Why should I vote for you, please tell me.

I have received yet another lengthy form from them which I have to read, complete and return, by the beginning of April.

This time it’s for a ‘Capability for Work Assessment’.

Its not the first Government form I have had to complete recently either. I had to deal with a Personal Independence Payment (PIP) form only last month after they decided that I, alongside many, many other disabled people, needed to be transferred from the Disability Living Allowance (DLA), which I have been receiving since 1998, to the new PIP Benefit instead. It’s not even as if completing either of these forms will give me any more money, the amounts will remain at exactly the same, pitifully small, levels. We never get any type of pay rise whatsoever.

And, as far as my impairment is concerned anyway, there has been no miracle cure either. No improvement, no divine intervention and no miracle medical advance in the past quarter of a century. My Multiple Sclerosis hasn’t got any better during the intervening years between diagnosis and now, it has only got worse. Thirty years on and it has only ever deteriorated.

But, despite this lack of movement, I still have to go through the form filling merry-go-round all over again.

What a complete waste of my time, their time, my ink, their ink, reams of their paper and their postage.

It’s not as if they’re short forms either. They expect me to write a novel, citing chapter and verse, excruciating detail after excruciating detail, about my condition and how it affects me on a day to day basis for every single question and there are an awful lot of questions. The new form is twenty-three pages long, the PIP form was much longer. I even have to give full contact details for my GP, my specialist nurse and my Consultant so they can all be sent a form to complete too where they will be asked to confirm that I’m not lying, exaggerating my condition or trying to cheat the system.

I realise and fully acknowledge that the Government needs to make sure that the Taxpayer’s money is spent properly and wisely and that the people who are in receipt of Welfare Benefits are actually entitled to the money they are claiming but, for a disabled person diagnosed with a well-known and well-documented, degenerative condition which is never going to improve, however much the DWP, and I would like it, is, in my opinion, pointless.

I am now restricted to my bed most of the time, only able to get up for, at most, one day at a time from 10am until 8pm and then needing 3 or 4 days recovery in bed afterwards before I can do it again. I cannot get out of bed or dress myself without help from two trained carers. I need to be washed and dressed by someone and then hoisted from my bed and put into my wheelchair for the short periods when I do get up.

Exactly how many times and in how many ways do I have to tell the DWP that I cannot walk, cannot stand, cannot move from one chair to another unaided, am doubly incontinent, have a catheter, and have to use an electric wheelchair. I cannot write with a pen or pencil, lift a carton containing a pint of liquid, put something in my top pocket, fold a letter and put it into an envelope or even move an empty box without help.

Why can’t they just leave those of us with a life-long, incurable, degenerative impairment, such as MS, alone, once we’ve told them about our condition and the affect it has upon us. Do they think we need to be continually reminded of the effects of our conditions? No matter how many times they ask, and regardless of the never-ending avalanche of paper they keep sending me, when will they realise I am not going to get better and that having to complete form after form is not going to help.

I would dearly love to be able to get up and go out to work but it’s not going to happen. All these endless forms do is make me feel depressed and distressed thanks to being constantly badgered and reminded what I can no longer do and what I am unlikely to ever be able to do again. They don’t ‘incentivise’ me at all so stop trying. Read my responses on both this, and the previous form you sent to me, make a note of them and then employ a little bit of common sense before you try asking me again. I’m stuck with this disease until the day I die and I don’t need you to keep reminding me. I am well aware of that fact without your havy-handed and insensative intervention.

I have only one further thing I want to say to you on this subject and I would be grateful if you listened for once.

Yesterday, as I usually do, I switched over to my daily dose of ‘Daily Politics’ on BBC2 at lunchtime and saw something that made me fume.

The programme started off with it’s usual collection of serious stories such as John Major’s speech about leaving the EU, rebels in the House of Lords and a variety of other Brexit related topics but, at the end of the program, and probably as a form of light relief, they showed the annual Parliamentary pancake race. MPs and Lords -v- journalists, ‘sprinting’ round a marked course, in the pretty little park by the Thames, whilst trying to toss cold and inedible pancakes.

Nothing of national importance, just a bit of fun.

Well, it was until they did an interview with one of the winning team of politicians. And it was that which made me fume as I munched my midday meal. My anger was directed towards one of the successful team of Tory MPs.

I can’t remember his name but, what he said, infuriated me.

When the presenter asked him why he had taken part in the race, the MP laughed and said that it was just a bit of fun but, it had a serious side too and helped raise money for charity. He was then asked which charity and he said ‘Rehab’.

Now, it’s not the Charity I have a problem with. Rehab do great work and, like so many other charities, needs whatever money it can get. That’s not it, that was not the problem. No, it’s what this politician said next that made me so angry. He gave a little laugh and then said “It’s a bit of a laugh and it’s good to be supporting a charity that is looking to help promote independent living for disabled people”.

And that was the point my cage was well and truly rattled.

How dare he say this only a day after ‘Personal Independence Payments’, the most important Welfare Benefit for thousands of disabled people, was cut for new claimants by HIS party. And this isn’t the first cut or major change either, it is just the latest of many. Employment Support Allowance has been severely restricted, Attendance Allowance is under threat. Unfair PIP assessments have lead to disabled people losing their cars or being denied benefits entirely. The Independent Living Fund has been axed. Cuts to the Access to Work scheme are imminent. The financial assaults by this Government on the independence of people who who are sick and disabled, through no fault of their own, has been neverending.

And then we get idiots like this politician almost rubbing it in.

If he really cared about helping disabled people gain independence then maybe he should have done something concrete to actually help and voted against this move instead of just running around a square, flipping pancakes, badly. Maybe he should actually look at the harm his Party’s policies have done. Disabled people have lost so much as a result of the never ending assaults on our hard-fought for allowances and benefits. People have been restricted to their homes because of these cuts. People have lost their jobs because of these cuts. People have lost their vehicles because of these cuts meaning they have lost independent access to local shops, their GP’s surgeries, life-saving hospitals and vital leisure activities. People have lost their homes. People have actually died and he doesn’t even seem to care.

Here’s an idea for you, oh unknown Tory Politician. If you really want to support disabled people and help us gain our independence why don’t you try opposing proposals to cut our support instead of waving it through on the nod. Pancake racing may be fun and result in a great photo-opportunity for you but it actually doesn’t help us. It may raise a bit of cash for charity but cash for our benefits could do so much more for us. Try cutting the cuts and see what that does for our independence, you might be surprised.

Flipping your pancake, running in the park and posing in your shorts and T-shirt on TV won’t really change anything for us but flipping your support for punishing policies and opposing even more cuts just might.